News from around the 32 counties of Ireland

There have been demands for a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to violence against medical staff after a paramedic was attacked as he tried to save a man’s life. The paramedic is still recovering from a wound to his leg inflicted as he tried to assist a patient. The medic was first on the scene after the Ambulance Service received a call just before midnight last Wednesday to attend a man with breathing difficulties in south Belfast. As the paramedic approached the young man he lashed out, cutting him with a piece of glass. The paramedic received hospital treatment for the injury to his thigh. He is said to be “very anxious about the whole episode”.
(Source: Belfast Telegraph)

Armagh

The funeral of Gerry Evan, one of the so-called 'Disappeared', was held in Co Armagh last Saturday. His body was found seven weeks ago in Co Louth. He had been missing for 31 years.
He was last seen in Castleblayney in Co Monaghan in March 1979 at the age of 24. It is believed he was kidnapped and murdered by the IRA. His funeral will took place last weekend in St Patrick's Church in Crossmaglen.
(Source: Breakingnews.ie)
Carlow

A Carlow surgeon completed Ireland’s first transplant operation using keyhole surgery at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital last week. Borris native Dilly Little led the keyhole surgery team, which allowed Kate Mooney (28) from Dublin to donate a kidney to her only sibling Cathal (31), without undergoing major abdomenal surgery. Cathal was diagnosed with kidney failure over a year ago. Ms Little is head of Beaumont’s Living Related Donor Programme and specifically trained in the technique for this transplant in Oslo.
(Source: The Carlow Nationalist)
Cavan

A terrified Kilnaleck newsagent was locked in her bedroom by a gang of raiders who broke into her shop at 3.30am last Friday week. A garda spokesman told The Anglo-Celt that Celia O’Reilly was asleep above her shop when the gang struck. She heard them trying to break the shutters open and it is understood that Mrs. Reilly awoke, and the intruders had entered her premises. The garda spokesman also revealed that the three members of the gang locked Mrs. O’Reilly in her bedroom before going to a large silver colour getaway car where another accomplice was waiting with the doors open.
(Source: The Angle Celt)

Clare

A book detailing the triumphs and tragedies of a Clare hurling club over a momentous year was named the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year recently in Dublin. Written by Sunday Times journalist Christy O’Connor, “The Club” is based around the 2009 season at St. Joseph’s Doora-Barefield GAA club and it won the award ahead of John Giles’ “A Football Man” and Declan Lynch’s “Days of Heaven” who took second and third place respectively.
(Source: The Clare People)
Cork

Around 3,000 students took to Cork city last Wednesday to protest against a €500 increase in student fees and a cut in the student maintenance grant. Speaking to the Cork Independent after the march, UCC student president Keith O’Brien condemned the government, saying: “We will remember that this failed government has sold into serfdom and servitude the hopes and futures of this and the next generation of young people and children to foreign masters, and chained them to hardship.”
Source: (Cork Independent)

Derry

A ruthless dentist who murdered his wife and ex-lover's policeman husband as they slept and then covered it up as a double suicide has been jailed for a minimum of 21 years.
Colin Howell, 51, from Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Londonderry, was told by Mr Justice Anthony Hart at Belfast Crown Court that he had committed truly heinous crimes and showed no mercy to two defenceless victims. Last month he was sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to poisoning his wife Lesley, 31, the mother of their four children, and Pc Trevor Buchanan, 32, husband of the woman with whom he had been having an affair at the time in May 1991
(Source: Lononderry Sentinel)

Donegal

Donegal County Council is to do what it can to help groups that support Irish emigrant groups in the U.S. and Britain. With the number of people leaving the county to live and work abroad on the rise, councillors are keen to provide whatever support the council can to help Donegal's diaspora. The move follows a motion by Councillor Dessie Larkin (FF) who witnessed at first hand the work of one such group on the County Development Board's recent trade visit to Boston. While there Cllr. Larkin saw the work of the Donegal Boston GAA club, which recently won the New England championship.
(Source: Donegal Democrat)

Down

The smoking ban in Northern Ireland is comparable to a prohibition imposed by the Third Reich in Hitler's Germany, senior judges have heard. A north Down man seeking to quash his conviction for lighting up at council offices also claimed smokers' rights to freedom from torture were being infringed. Opening his case in the Court of Appeal, Chris Carter (56) produced a photograph of a cancer patient he claimed was made to go outside Belfast City Hospital for a cigarette. The former security consultant, who represented himself as a personal litigant, is seeking leave to apply for a judicial review of the legislation which led to him being fined.
(Source: Belfast Telegraph)
Dublin